Western Digital My Net N900 HD Router Review

Packaging, Externals, Internals

The N900 came well packaged with an ethernet cable, power adapter, setup guide and CD:

Externals:

Front. Indicators light up a dim (i.e. non-blinding) blue.

Rear. Included Ethernet cable is color-keyed to the port. Nice touch, as are the link state lights present on all Eethernet ports.

Bottom. Note the integrated fan.

Internals:

Sorry, I can only look at new tech for so long before I start ripping the screws out. A few warranty-voiding moves and voala!

Build quality looks very good, with particular attention given to antenna routing. Note there are six (!) total antennas. Three for the 2.4GHz band, and another three for the 5GHz band. More on that in a sec.

Ethernet connectivity is driven by a pair of Atheros AR8327N low power GigE switch chips. Each chip drives 4 of the 7 available ports (number 8 is reserved for the Internet port).

Now for the meat and potatoes. With the shield removed we see the Atheros AR9380 triple-stream 802.11n, configured to drive triple channels as evidenced by the three RF switches (left). This module drives the 5GHz antenna array. Three radios + three antennas = 3x3 configuration capable of 450Mbps.

Here is the other Atheros, this one labeled AR9381. I couldn't find a specific product page for this model, but it appears to be a 9380 variant that is not capable of 5GHz, which would make sense given its connection to the 2.4GHz array. Again, three more radios and three more antennas making up another 3x3 configuration on the 2.4GHz side. This link also maxes out at a theoretical 450Mbps.

Here's what both radios look like functionally:

What essentially happens here is that multiple radios simultaneously transmit and receive over multiple antennas. More radios and antennas mean more bandwidth. A great blog post from the folks over at Intel detail those differences quite nicely. The short story is that if you want the greatest mainstream capability at the time of this writing, you want dual band with 3x3 arrays, which the N900 can deliver.

or they could simply disable external registrar functionality thereby making the whole vulnerability non-existent. case in point, i have WPS enabled on my 2Wire and it is not vulnerable to reaver style attacks(I tried for 30 minutes with the correct pin)

Any chance you have some screen shots or details on the Parental Controls or Access Restrictions? One of the main reasons I use Tomato today on my NetGear is the ability to limit access to my kids computers by time table etc. Also web usage logs is another big one. And last, real time network graphing?

I'd just about given up on an off the shelf router being useful but I may have to take a look at this one.

I have this router, and it might work well as a wired router, but the wireless is weak,and with no way to adjust the power output of the wifi. I have my main router in the garage(R7000), and this N900 in the living room. The wireless signal coming from the garage is still stronger. Use of a wifi signal meter shows it goes just below the ideal strength starting at 4 feet away. I'm disappointed in this router. I need a router to use as a range extender, and I already had this one. I'm thinking of taking the cover off to see if the transmitter is physically adjustable.

Any chance you have some screen shots or details on the Parental Controls or Access Restrictions? One of the main reasons I use Tomato today on my NetGear is the ability to limit access to my kids computers by date/time etc. Also web usage logs is another big one. And last, real time network graphing?

I'd just about given up on an off the shelf router being useful but I may have to take a look at this one.

I just wish I could afford to buy a copy of ixia Chariot for testing :-)

The Parental Controls are pretty darn sweet, now that I've took some additional time and dug into them. Thanks for the question there. Access restrictions are covered there, and MAC filtering should be able to cover any unregistered devices.

Thanks Allyn. Good stuff. I'll have to review one of these. I used to work for USRobotics and 3Com so I've been looking for a better router for 10 years. After 30-40 of them I'm still looking :-)

The QOS looks great but I'd like to see how much control I can have over it. I want to be able to manage the QOS by protocol, IP, maybe even time. I can do it in Tomato today pretty well.

The network graphing is a standard feature now on most open source router firmware, it would be nice to see them add it in or even better, create an API so you could make an app for your mobile/tablet/desktop gadget to see the traffic.

Potential breakdown of the cooling fan in the long run in dusty environment. Fans do fail in time being mechanical.

When you lay the router on a flat surface, air circulation at the bottom may not be sufficient in unclean industrial environment. WD could have provided optional 1/2 in legs with self adhesive tape to provide better clearance at the bottom. I have used a mod with 1/2 in plastic end caps (4) on pancake type routers from Linksys.

I have it on my desk with good ventilation and the still fan comes on probably to keep innards cool. We will have to wait till users find the failing fans. Still I feel the designers could have avoided the cooling fan.

Besides remote management (which can be done without a middle man server) why are the Parental Controls configured outside of the router? From the images in the article it doesn't appear to be doing anything that exciting. To me allowing a remote server push a configuration to my router is a security liability, especially if the router is hosting storage devices. The Cisco Connect Cloud which just started rolling out is this way. You configure that router on their site and can't connect directly (without disconnecting the internet connection and then it is limited what you can do) which seems like a terrible idea since all you need is your account hacked for someone to get full access to your storage devices. I'm hoping the Cisco Connect Cloud idea doesn't catch on.

I am researching routers as our current one seems to be getting tired and we are having to re-set it all the time. I have alos been looking to buy a back up storage device. We have 3 computers and 2 laptops in our household. We watch movies via netflix and take hundreds of photos a month. Would this device be the answer to both my needs?
One last question: our current place for router is in basement - I have heard it should be up top in attic?
thanks for your answers, "Mother learning technical stuff"

Mum - Dont put it in the attic, this introduces a lot of extra heat that can break the device down prematurely. I suggest somewhere in the middle. With the multi directional antennas nowadays, dead center of the house should provide the best coverage.

hope this helps I have a 50mbps line which goes into a real cisco 3000 series router. From there I go into a gb layer 3 procurve switch. I have 254 static ip's one of wich goes to the n900 for my lan internet. The rest used by servers in my server farm in my basement. The gb wan port is a must have in my network configuration as I transfer large files from my desktop to various web server in my farm. One thing the wan port default is at 512kbps which is horrible so I manually set it to 20000 which is about 20mbps. I have no issues with streaming from any service. I have tried the netgear 900 and its horrible at transferring large files across the wan port to my servers. Hope this helps.

I love this router but it has some issues. First, that fan inside doesn't work. I have never seen it working. I removed the cover and never any fan turning. Not during startup, not when it's hot, never. Poor design.

Second, those chips run hot and they have a terrible cooling design. The engineers were over-paid for this job. I'm currently ordering PROPER heatsinks and I'm removing the IC cover inside and making sure the chips are properly cooled.

I believe the cooling of this device is the main issue. When it's hot, my connection drops. I knew this would be a problem when I purchased it due to it's power requirements but I believe I can correct the mistakes of the poor engineers.

Still, it's a great device! I have a WD Media device with 1Tb hdd. It has lasted for years!